Highland Living

Waking up at 8am to a cool cloudy, foggy morning to join a full day tour through the Cameron Highlands, I had a cup of locally produced Strawberry/Raspberry tea to get in a tea tour type of mood. After my cup of tea it was time to hop in the Landrover with Kumar our very experienced, energetic, and interestingly talkative tour guide. On our tour were an Australian couple, 3 girls from England, Jan a German dude, and Jine a funny little Chinese girl. Kumar took us to the look out tower atop the highest peak in the area (6666 feet) but we could barely see each other let alone the breathe taking view of the region. After that stop off it was time to drive down the road a couple hundred meters and go for a jungle "trek" ( they use trek in place of hike, not sure why or if there is a difference; it's all walking to me.) It was a very informative trek as Kumar is very well versed in knowing what plants are which and which ones are used for different kinds of home remedies. Kumar is also a self taught English speaker (along with 3 other languages) and photographer. Kumar truly was a wealth of knowledge the entire day. Due to the foggy conditions it was the general consensus to cut the trek short in favor of going straight to the BOH (Best of Highlands) tea plantation for a spot of tea and a scone (s-con) not (s-cone) according to the Brits and Aussies.


Talk about a view and truly unique experience, sitting out on a terrace in the bottom of a valley in which are planted 400 acres of tea bushes (which can surprisingly grow up to 20 feet, but they cut them down to about waist high so they can pick the fresh leaves form the top.) After tea we ambled around the smaller town attractions like the butterfly gardens that had a great animal collection. After lunch in town the Brits and Aussies abandoned ship and we collected a French couple for a trip through the jungle to visit a local tribe. Orang- Asle (or Original People, coincidently "Orangutan means " Organ= People and Utan= Jungle.) The oh so cunning Kumar (who by now is a good friend of mine, being photographers can talk shop for hours) parked us at the base of hill and took us on a trek/climb through dense, muddy and wet jungle trail. After about an hour of ups and downs and slipping through mud and ducking under trees we arrived at a small village about maybe 20 huts or so. Now don't get this tribe confused with super aborginal type people, they are modernizing quickly, they don't wear grass skirts or anything they wear t-shirts and wear pants and the kids all go off to school and the parents work in the tea plantation. They do have many pets several dogs, couple cats and a monkey they caught and tied to the stilt of one of the huts. After a demonstration on how to use a blow pipe and an actual go at it (I did pretty well) I walked over to the end of a hill to lookout on the scenic valley only to look down and see our truck parked a minute away at the base of the hill, with a nice worn trail leading straight to it. Sneaky Kumar, I called him on it and he said "it would have been no fun to walk straight up. I agreed and was just very glad not to have to trek back through that jungle again. By this time the rain was coming in and it was time to call it a day. We got back to the guesthouse called "Father's Guesthouse' and sat around drinking beer with the Brits, a few more new Brits, the German, the Chinawomen and of course Kumar until 2am.

Then today I woke up around 9 and went on a self guided trek with my buddy Jan. Going down of course was no problem at all of course about 2 hours down was very pleasant walking on the side of a mountain gorgeous views of farms and small homes. Who would have thought that Jan the 23 year old, chain smoking, beer drinking last one up at night German would be such a damned good hiker. Of course he elected and I followed (lets face it I need to get in shape) to take the steep / way back up the mountain. I died but got better and made it all the way up about 10 minutes behind my German mountain goat friend. On the way up fortunately I ran across a tree branch with literally 10,00's of 1000's of ants carry food and foraging. I got some great shots!


With the rest of my day I will sit and write, which I am finding to be my favorite part of the day; drink hot chocolate while the weather cools, and rain comes. I might go into town for dinner or eat here. I had hoped to edit photographs but I don't think that will happen, these computers don't have editing software.